e dance all the way home. Although we wait until we’re out of Alexa’s driveway first obviously. We’re not on a suicide mission.

“Did you see that?” Toby keeps shouting, wiggling his hips. He’s opened his jacket up and is accompanying our triumphant movements with the electric keyboard on his T-shirt. “Take that, Alexa! WHAM! We came all the way to your house and everything!”

I twirl round in a happy little circle with my hands over my head. It’s all over. If the big bad wolf wants to get us, she’s going to have to climb down the chimney. Where we’re going to keep a big cauldron of hot water, just in case.

It feels amazing. Even Nat does a little triumphant shoulder wriggle when she thinks nobody’s looking.

“You know,” she says breathlessly when we’ve all finally stopped glorying in the moment, “that felt really good. Alexa’s never going to say sorry for anything, which makes us the good guys, right?”

“Well, we know we’re not the bad guys,” Toby says earnestly. “If we were, we’d be wearing black with little skulls and we’d probably have moustaches.”

“I still can’t believe you cut her hair off.”

“I know. What was I thinking?”

“Where did you even get the scissors?”

“The art room. Everything went a bit blurry for a few minutes and the next thing I knew I had a ponytail in my hand. I’ve felt horrible about it for days.”

“Nat,” I say seriously, slowing my skipping down a little. “I am sorry. For everything. For lying to you. For stealing your dream. And I know that you’ll probably hate me forever, but…”

Nat rolls her eyes. “I was never going to hate you forever, Harriet. Just a couple of days.”

“But you said…”

“We were fighting. What did you want me to say? I’ll hate you for about thirty-six hours until I’ve calmed down a bit?”

Oh.

“Yeah, that would have been nice, actually,” I tell her, slightly huffily. “Just a heads-up could have been really handy. I was in the depths of despair.”

Nat laughs. “Drama queen as always. Although if you had a temper like mine, I probably would have kept the modelling secret too. I am terrifying.” She looks proudly at her nails and blows on them. “Unpredictable and absolutely terrifying.”

“So we’re…” I venture.

“Yeah.” Nat shrugs and grins at me. “Whatever.”

I’m just about to throw myself into her not-even-slightly open arms when my phone rings and Toby holds his hands up.

“It’s not me,” he points out. “Just in case anyone’s wondering. I’m not ringing you, Harriet. Although I could because I’ve totally learnt your number off by heart.”

“Wilbur?” I say, grabbing it out of my pocket.

“Hello, my little Crunchie-nut,” Wilbur says happily. “I’d love to sit and chat about all sorts of girly fun, but I want to go home, so here’s the details for this thing Yuka wants you to do. It’s tomorrow morning, Petal-moo; an interview for a fashion special on WakeUp UK. They need you there nice and early so you’ll still get to school on time.” He pauses. “If your school starts at 10am obviously.”

I look at Nat, who’s pretending she can’t hear the entire conversation. Wilbur’s voice carries like a Sports Day whistle.

“I can’t do it, Wilbur.” Nat’s eyes go very round, but we’ve only just resurrected our friendship: I can’t risk it. “You’re just going to have to tell Yuka to sue me. Remind her that I’m underage, please, and my stepmother’s a really, really great lawyer.”

I can feel it already. Nat and I will be like the dolphins at Sea World again, jumping in perfect harmony. Living in synergy; one stream of consciousness, with never a cross word between us. Two minds in one bod—

The phone gets snatched out of my hand.

“Wilbur? Hello. This is Nat. I’m the girl who cried in your reception on Saturday morning. Harriet says it’s a fantastic and exciting opportunity and she’ll be there. Text her the time and address. Thanks.” And she hangs up.

I stare at her for a few seconds. Nat’s the girl who was crying in the agency?

“Nat? What the hell are you doing?” I finally blurt.

“What I would have done at the beginning, if you’d let me.”